Resource Conservation and Recovery Act

42 U.S.C. s/s 6901 et seq. (1976)

RCRA (pronounced "rick-rah") gave EPA the authority to control hazardous waste from the "cradle-to-grave." This includes the generation, transportation, treatment, storage, and disposal of hazardous waste. RCRA also set forth a framework for the management of non-hazardous wastes.

The 1986 amendments to RCRA enabled EPA to address environmental problems that could result from underground tanks storing petroleum and other hazardous substances. RCRA focuses only on active and future facilities and does not address abandoned or historical sites (see CERCLA).

HSWA (pronounced "hiss-wa")—The Federal Hazardous and Solid Waste Amendments are the 1984 amendments to RCRA that required phasing out land disposal of hazardous waste. Some of the other mandates of this strict law include increased enforcement authority for EPA, more stringent hazardous waste management standards, and a comprehensive underground storage tank program.

Full text of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act

The full text version of this law is hosted by Cornell University. This collection was generated from the most recent version of the Government Printing Office CD-ROM. The Government Printing Office maintains the official government version of the laws through the GPO Access database structure.

The U.S. Code is the official record of all federal laws and contains the general and permanent laws of the United States. The most recent version of the U.S. Code released in electronic form contains the laws in effect as of January 16, 1996. For more recent laws, please see the uncompiled Public Laws as passed by Congress available through the Thomas Legislative Information Web site.

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